Pirate Town Name Generator

The real pirate havens of the Golden Age had borrowed names. Tortuga is Spanish for turtle, Port Royal was a respectable English colony before the buccaneers took it over, Nassau was named for a Dutch prince, and Île Sainte-Marie off Madagascar was a French trading post. The lawless reputation came afterward. That is why the most convincing pirate town names are ordinary colonial toponyms, Port This or Saint That or Isla de Something, that sound slightly wrong for the people who actually live there: Saint Scurvy, Port Perdition, Puerto Sangre, Baie des Voleurs.

The second register is the name the pirates gave a place themselves, usually a blunt description of what happens there. Gallows, gibbets, careening beaches, rum and wrecks dominate: Gallows Cove, The Careenage, Rotgut Landing, Wrecker's Reach, Hangman's Shelf. English coastal settlements also compress into single words (Saltwick, Brinehaven, Gallowstown), and a surprising number of real Caribbean places are just a famous captain with a possessive, like Teach's Hole on Ocracoke.

When naming a haven for a map or campaign, decide who founded it first. A captured Spanish fort keeps its Spanish name with an English nickname; a beach settlement gets a descriptive English one; a free republic of pirates picks something grand and slightly ridiculous like Libertalia.